With the PlayStation 5 entering the second half of its life, figures from Sony indicate around half of all current PlayStation gamers are yet to upgrade to current gen.
As pointed out by Game File’s Stephen Totilo, Sony announced this week that PlayStation has 118 million monthly active users (MAUs), up 9% year-on-year, but around half of those are still on the 11-year-old PlayStation 4. PS5 has sold over 59 million units since going on sale in November 2020, and it has yet to see a price cut. Infact, Sony has raised the price of the console.
Speaking to the investment community (as reported by Totilo) Sony president Hiroki Totoki painted a rosy picture of the situation, saying MAUs will steadily increase as PS4 players eventually upgrade to PS5, but as Daniel Ahmad, Director of Research and Insights at Niko Partners, pointed out in a tweet, the transition from PS4 to PS5 has so far been “slow.”
On console PlayStation Network MAU’s have barely grown since the PS5 launch.
— Daniel Ahmad (@ZhugeEX) May 16, 2024
It’s just been a slow transition from PS4 > PS5
So, why have so many PS4 gamers held off on upgrading to a PS5? Or, perhaps to put it a better way, why are so many PS4 gamers content to stick with the console they have?
Mat Piscatella, Executive Director and Video Game Industry Advisor at Circana, suggested in a tweet that the most-played games in the U.S. are all currently available on the last generation of consoles, and that’s enough for most people. These games (Fortnite, Minecraft, Roblox, GTA 5, and Call of Duty), are all available on PS4. “Any console that can play a majority of, or all five, of these games will be just fine for many people,” Piscatella commented.
This is not a situation unique to PlayStation, either, Piscatella added, as it affects all consoles. IGN has already reported on tumbling sales of the Xbox Series X and S, which looks like it will struggle to outsell its predecessor, the much-maligned Xbox One. Microsoft’s answer includes bringing its Xbox games to rival platforms, including PS5, but it has also committed to releasing a more powerful next-gen console, and there are rumors it plans an Xbox handheld, too.
As for Sony, PS5 sales currently trail those of PS4 after the same amount of time after launch, but it’s worth pointing out the PS4 had undergone price cuts totaling $100 by now. Sony has said it expects PS5 sales to continue to decline, although it is also expected to launch a PS5 Pro later this year.
Sony’s plan to increase sales and profits from PlayStation in the coming years depends upon its ability to expand the number of active PlayStation users and user engagement, and cutting business costs. In February, Sony announced a significant round of layoffs affecting around 900 staff, or about 8% of its global PlayStation workforce. The layoffs affect a number of PlayStation studios, including Insomniac, Naughty Dog, Guerrilla, Firesprite, and, most significantly, PlayStation's London studio. Alongside the layoffs, a number of in-development games were canceled.
Sony also plans to grow sales of first-party games. It has said this financial year ending March 2025 will not see the release of big new games in its major franchises, ruling out sequels in the Spider-Man and God of War series. But Sony is expected to release a number of big-hitters from April 2025 onwards, including the likes of Insomniac’s Wolverine.
Wesley is the UK News Editor for IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at wesley_yinpoole@ign.com or confidentially at wyp100@proton.me.
